46 Replies - 4425 Views - Last Post: 09 July 2014 - 08:33 PM

Let's throw out the moral, ethical, and legal issues for a moment

Posted 08 July 2014 - 12:39 AM

So--I've been asking this question around a lot lately, mostly because i'm always interested in what peoples responses will be. But lets say you in granted immunity from any legal, ethical or moral repercussions and could conduct one ground-breaking experiment. what would that experiment be?

So far, what i've learned from other communities is; those people are gorram Nazis (9/10 would try eugenics or some similar experiment).. but those communities have been FPS gaming sites and Reddit.

Re: Let's throw out the moral, ethical, and legal issues for a moment

Posted 08 July 2014 - 06:50 AM

POPULAR

OK...

First, I need tapioca pearls, as many as you can get for me!

I will also need a metal detector, 4 high amperage capacitors, the bark of a birch tree, the urine of 12 Russian men mixed, and hair clippings from every baby named Jamie (or any spelling alternative) born in the last 6 months in North America, and the farts of 50 obese people eating corn on a hot sunday afternoon in Georgia.

Next I need a pool filled with vinegar. It must be at least 8 feet deep.

Re: Let's throw out the moral, ethical, and legal issues for a moment

Posted 08 July 2014 - 07:22 AM

POPULAR

Quote

Let's throw out the moral, ethical, and legal issues for a moment
[...]
So far, what i've learned from other communities is; those people are gorram Nazis (9/10 would try eugenics or some similar experiment).. but those communities have been FPS gaming sites and Reddit.

Interesting.. you tell people to throw out the legal, moral, and ethical issues for an experiment to only turn around and judge their response with a finger pointing of "NAZIS!"? Kind of a dick move there, brah..

Re: Let's throw out the moral, ethical, and legal issues for a moment

Posted 08 July 2014 - 07:32 AM

I would forbid meat, replace it with insects and see what it does to human health, poverty and global warming. I'm expecting to see many problems fixed in the long term, but many other raised in the short term (especially economic, social and cultural). If there is no way to manage them, there is no point in doing the experiment.

The funny thing with brain teasers like that is that they make you think you got a great idea before you realise it could actually go against your first intention.

Re: Let's throw out the moral, ethical, and legal issues for a moment

Posted 08 July 2014 - 07:34 AM

modi123_1, on 08 July 2014 - 09:22 AM, said:

Quote

Let's throw out the moral, ethical, and legal issues for a moment
[...]
So far, what i've learned from other communities is; those people are gorram Nazis (9/10 would try eugenics or some similar experiment).. but those communities have been FPS gaming sites and Reddit.

Interesting.. you tell people to throw out the legal, moral, and ethical issues for an experiment to only turn around and judge their response with a finger pointing of "NAZIS!"? Kind of a dick move there, brah..

Honestly, I'm not surprised by the route it ends up going.

A request is made for an experiment that could only be done if all moral/ethical/legal issues were set aside.

Only a few topics cross the ven diagram of immoral/unethical/illegal. That being pretty much the destruction of life, the most critical of which is human life, murder.

And then people will certainly take such a request and take it to its logical extremes, so as to make a mockery of the entire request in the first place.

And what do you get? The very experiments done by the Nazis that are detested for being the most immoral and unethical experiment in common knowledge to this day.

I wouldn't say they're Nazis, I'd say they gave you exactly what your request would result in.

Now of course, by mentioning that information this time around, OP has tainted this group. We are no longer part of the original experiment in which they were seeing what a community would come up with. We are an outlayer now because of their injection of extra information. The chances we would go that route are slim now. Though, the chance is still there... who is with me? Who is for eugenics!?

Re: Let's throw out the moral, ethical, and legal issues for a moment

Posted 08 July 2014 - 08:22 AM

There is a difference between ignoring the rules and going against the rules. The OP's question doesn't suggest you should come up with immoral experiments, it just says that you should free your mind. Exactly like a developer would say to a designer "don't pollute yourself with implementation constraints now, we'll see that later". It doesn't mean "please make it next to impossible to implement on purpose, I like it when it hurts".